Recently there has been a renewed debate with respect to the advantages and risks associated with parents sleeping in the same bed with their new born infants. The obvious risks involved in parent cohabitation with an infant involve the prospect that the infant may be innocently and unintentionally rolled on top of and/or smothered by the parents when the parents move during their sleep. The obvious advantages of having an infant co-habit the parental bed include, for example, the ease by which such infant can be breast fed by the mother and the advantages associated with the parent being able to hear, touch and feel their child, and thus assure the parent of the child's well being. Although a common practice in the United States and Europe is to have infants and small children placed in their own crib or bed very soon after they are born, thus permitting the parents to resume their sleeping habits developed prior to having a child, many other cultures view such a practice as cold hearted and against the natural parental tendencies. Indeed, some African cultures view the placement of a young child in a crib as tantamount to placing the child in a cage, promoting unnecessary crying behavior when the child realizes that it is entrapped and encouraging the child to garner parental attention by crying, screaming, etc., which unduly upsets the child. Recently, experts in the childrearing and development field have touted the advantages of sleeping with infants and small children to provide them with a more secure feeling and fostering a better parental-child relationship. Unfortunately, due to the ever present dangers involved in parents' unintentionally rolling over onto a child and injuring the child and/or causing suffocation, there exists a need for a relatively simple, inexpensive device that can facilitate co-sleeping of a parent and an infant/child without the prior dangers experienced in simply having an infant co-habit the parental bed.
The common desire of pets to sleep in the bed of their owners also creates various and obvious problems. Typical remedies include only allowing the pet to sleep at the side or front of the bed, or simply permitting the pet to co-occupy some portion of a bed normally reserved for just humans. The undesired accumulation of pet hair, dirt, oils, etc. that may soil beddings is an unfortunately result of such a practice. There is therefore a need for a device that permits companion animals to sleep in close proximity with their owners without relegating such animals to a place on the bedside floor, or compelling pet owners to tolerate the filth encountered with pets sharing their bed.
Various co-sleeper beds have been disclosed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,347 to Tharalson et al. discloses a bed-side crib that attaches to a parental bed and is convertible for use as a child's easel, couch, bassinet or toy display/storage device. Tharalson et al. requires, however, the use of supporting legs which transcend from the co-sleeper bed to the floor, thus causing problems with respect to availability of floor space, vacuuming capabilities and simple undesired physical obstacles in the parental bedroom. Moreover Tharalson et al.'s design incorporates various structural supports and features that not only add to the cost, rigidity and weight of such device, such features may also pose certain risks to infants (e.g., contact with hard, unforgiving surfaces, etc.). U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,561 to Tharalson et al., shows another version of a baby crib adjacent to a parental bed, also showing the use of adjustable legs to support the crib above the floor and next to the parental bed. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,655 to Van Winkle, et al., is directed to a nursing cradle which also has legs projecting to the ground so as to support the nursing cradle above the ground and beside the parental bed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,340 to Kelly discloses a crib for newborns that is placed in close proximity to a parent's bed without being physically attached thereto, such infant bassinet supported by ground extending members and having similar deficits as described above (e.g., hard support surfaces, etc.).
Moreover, several prior art patents disclose various types of pet beds (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,484). Such devices also require support from legs extending to the ground, heavy, hard structured features, etc., thus suffering from many of the same limitations as discussed above with respect to infant/child co-sleepers.
There is a need for a relatively inexpensive, co-sleeper for infants and/or pets which can easily be connected to an individual's bed without the use of ground contacting legs (which take up valuable floor space and create undesired obstacles with respect to access under the bed, hinder vacuuming operations, etc.) and that is devoid of hard structural features that may potentially injure a child/pet, or that makes it difficult to collapse such device for easy transport.